Just Get It: Cinemagram--The Animated Instagram

It was just the other day that we were talking about how GIFs are making a comeback and then BAM!: Factyle comes out with Cinemagram, a new app that lets you make animated GIFs with your own pictures. It was if the App Gods of the Universe were reading our site!

Here's essentially what it does: Once you film a 2-3 second video clip and animate just a small portion of it, you can add vintage filters and share it instantly on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Simple? Yes. Everything we've ever wanted? Possibly.

We obviously decided to take it for test drive and and it's surprisingly fast and easy to do. The most difficult part is selecting the area to animate. We accidentally highlighted half of our friend's arm, so when the app animated him, it appeared as if his wrist was being severed from the rest of his body (sweet, but not our intention.) After a few failed (but fun) attempts, you'll be a Cinemagram pro in no time, and you can wow your mom and dad with your new space age phone technology.

Meanwhile, check out some of the featured Cinemagrams for inspiration. 

-- Perrin Drumm

Small Business Owners & Non-Profits: Cause.it May Be The App You've Been Waiting For

Cause.it from Kurtis Beavers on Vimeo.

Normally, we aim to point you away from your smartphones, but this one (we must admit) is quite brilliant:

Essentially, Cause.it is an app designed to make it easier and financially beneficial for small businesses to help local charities and nonprofits. There are benefits for volunteers and the nonprofits themselves as well, but Cause.it began with the civic-minded small business owner in mind; those who wants to extend their reach beyond the occasional service, product or monetary donation.

To give you a simple example, it works like this: The owner of a cafe offers incentives like free coffee or discounts on meals that can be redeemed using a point a system. To get points you volunteer your time. For example, planting a tree with one nonprofit gets your 50 points, 7 of which can be redeemed at a local cafe for half off any coffee drink. 

Though Cause.it is still in its initial phases, the more it catches on, the wider the network of volunteers it has the capacity to create; and that's something we can align with. Currently, there are some obvious bugs to work out (the first bug we came across: waiting for over an hour for it download. Maybe too many users?) Either way, once the kinks are smoothed out, we're excited to start navigating the system. Promote a local food drive and get a discount at a small boutique? Why yes, we'll take it.

If you're a small business owner or run a nonprofit, register through Cause.it and begin reaping the benefits of some good old fashioned civic duty!

-- Perrin Drumm

The Artist's Way: Now Officially An App (Which We'll Review For You Now)

Based on "The Artist's Way," the best-selling book by Julia Cameron, The Artist's Toolkit is an app designed to "unlock your creativity" and keep you "inspired all year long." (Yes, the implications of your smartphone doing this is eye-roll-worthy.) But before we roll them right out of our heads, let's lay what this app is all about. First, you create your customized artist's notebook, which basically means choosing the gridded paper or antiqued theme option for your notebook background. This is where you will "trace your creative process" as you "unblock your creativity." 

You start each morning with your Daily Meditation, designed to get you into that special, creative space. Each day you will receive Inspirations and Affirmations (their capitalization, not ours) and each week you'll be sent Artist's Date ideas. You can share your Daily Inspirations with your friends, listen to Creative Soundbites or do a few exercises, which are prompts like "If you have five other lives to lead, what would you do in each of them?"

After cruising around this app for a while (you can take a virtual tour) it seems best for those who've always wanted to try their hand at poetry but have never gotten around to it, or those looking for a guided, journaling experience--or those who've hit rock bottom and are desperate enough to try anything to crawl their way out again. Of course, all these daily tidbits of wisdom and the ability to organize your Post-It notes (aka Fleeting Moments of Creativity) don't come free. Yes, the app itself is free, but to actually use it you have to sign up for a $4.99/month membership.

Final say: Grab yourself a blank notebook, we think it just might do the trick.